USA Celebrations in Santa Barbara (CA)

TV-Coverage Celebrations March 21st:

On Friday, March 21, 2014 the Santa Barbara Rose Society (SBRS) will present two events to mark the 150th birthday of Father George Schoener (1864-1941), Santa Barbara’s long-forgotten “Padre of the Roses.” Eden, the magazine of the California Garden and Landscape History Society has already named this date “George Schoener Day.” Fr. Schoener, who lived and worked on Milpas Street in the 1920s and 1930s, was famous around the world for his work as a pioneering rose hybridizer and nurseryman in the vein of Luther Burbank. His home and nursery at 125 Milpas were lost to us when the 101 freeway went in.

At 2 pm on March 21 a ceremony will be held at the A.C. Postel Rose Garden across from the Santa Barbara Mission, where Father Schoener’s two remaining roses, ‘Arrillaga’ and ‘Schoener’s Nutkana’ will be honored. At 7 pm that evening SBRS will present an illustrated talk on Father Schoener’s life and work at Farrand Hall in the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, 2559 Puesta Del Sol in Santa Barbara. The talk will include pictures of many of Father Schoener’s “lost roses” and a two-minute 1937 Paramount Pictures newsreel of Father Schoener working on his Milpas Street “Avenida de las Roses,” tending some of his many unique roses, including a “black” rose named for Oliver Wendell Holmes. Sadly, all but two of his roses have been lost to us. The presenters are SBRS Board member Linda Buzzell-Saltzman and SBCC Professor Alyse Steidler.

Fr. Schoener died in 1941 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Santa Barbara. The SBRS has added an engraved rose to his memorial stone in honor of his contributions to the rose world.

The Santa Barbara Rose Society (www.sbrose.org) was established in 1959. It is a non-profit society, devoted to sharing knowledge about roses, rose culture and the pleasure of rose gardening.